So what does that mean? For now, Google will not re-invent e-mail. Even more, one of those things that was going to ‘change everything’ died. It didn’t change anything, but that doesn’t mean things don’t need to change. E-mail is one of the most lousy tools that we use, both to do business, and to manage social media communities. And don’t even get me started about reading e-mail from a mobile.

Crikey. We need something better.

And if Google can’t invent something better, then I suspect we’re stuck with what we have. The good news is Outlook has added some functionality to its PC based e-mail that actually synchs with Facebook and maybe some other social networks.

Outlook might turn into more. so the re-imagining of e-mail might simply be turning it into one place to manage many networks.

I fear that my e-mail future is in the hands of Microsoft. We’ll see how that goes.

Someday someone will come along and create killer app 2.0 and my guess is it will have tentacles into all the social media, CRM, project management, information storage (evernote types) of sites and all be accessible from anyplace that has a screen to show XHTML.

My guess would also be that they will start not by creating a new email client but some new evolutionary concept of connecting people and the data that orbits around them.